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RICHMOND, VA – Newly released figures from Virginia Health Information (VHI), the agency that gathers and reports health care data in the Commonwealth, yet again confirm the fact that many local hospitals across the state continue to struggle financially.

The numbers show that 27 percent of Virginia’s acute care, critical access, and children’s hospitals, and more than 43 percent of rural hospitals, operated in the red during 2015.

Those figures indicate a slight increase from 2014 data showing roughly 25 percent of overall hospitals, and 42 percent of rural hospitals, with negative operating margins. Data from the past two years reflect the continuation of a pattern consistently evid

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For the second time Joe Bush plans to seek the Democratic nomination for Roanoke City Sheriff in 2013. That is what an email said from his campaign manager, W. Andrew Ridgway who was soliciting time to speak to a neighborhood organization. It said, “We would like to develop strategies to improve the relationship between the Roanoke City Sheriff’s Office and community organizations. We would also like to provide members the opportunity to voice any concerns with the current sheriff’s office.”

Bush sought the Democratic nomination in 2009 and lost to Frank Garrett who garnered 65 percent of the vote. Garrett went on to lose to incumbent Republican Sheriff Octavia Johnson.

Bush received his undergraduate degree from Hampden Sydney College. He worked in the Prince Edward County Sheriff’s Office as a security officer through college and was deputized by Prince Edward’s sheriff’s office before graduation. He later joined the probation and parole department and moved to Roanoke.

Bush criticized Sheriff Johnson during the 2009 campaign when a lawsuit arose over sniper training. He said it put the lives of her deputies at risk and that Johnson owed the public a pledge never to hold those types of trainings again.

“This is just one more incident that causes concern that our sheriff does not know what is going on in the jail she is supposed to be running,” he said.